A great quote my Dad made me aware of

“We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing.”

 

This is just to good.

WATCHMEN: Awesome Graphic Novel

WATCHMEN Book Cover

I just got back from a relaxing vacation and part of that relaxation time was spent reading WATCHMEN.  I went to a movie about a month ago and saw a preview for the WATCHMEN movie that is out in theaters now and that it was based on the graphic novel.   I haven’t ever read a graphic novel and immediately thought that this one would be a good one to read.  I picked up a copy the day before we left for vacation and I completed it today.  The book is awesome and I would highly recommend reading it if your looking for a great piece of fiction.  This book is outstanding from a literary and artistic viewpoint.   This novel really paints a picture of evil and how it decays the world. Though this book really didn’t strive for a hidden Christian message of any kind, I found the following quote from the text fitting:

“I guess I’ve just reached a point where I’ve started to wonder whether all the grandstanding and fighting individual evils does much good for the world as a whole.  Those evils are just symptoms of an overall sickness of the human spirit, and I don’t believe you can cure a disease by suppressing its symptoms.”  Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias)

Go out and grab a copy if your looking for an entertaining read.  I plan to read more graphic novels and I am looking forward to selecting the next one to read.

Update: February 2008

A quick update:

• We are still living in Kansas City
• I got promoted to Interim Director of Information Technology at my company. Now I got to get that “Interim” removed.
• The Lockman Foundation granted Bibleshark.com the right to use the New American Standard Bible and the Amplified Bible
• I actually completed my first Masters class in the MSIS program at Nova and I am on to the next one.
• Kassa and I spent our 11th Valentines Day together….yep…Still in Love
• We are leaving for a much needed vacation in San Francisco in 2 weeks
• I am reading 3 books simultaneously and slowly
  • The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias
  • The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel
  • The Attributes of GOD by Arthur W. Pink
  • Next on the list: Southern Baptists and the Doctrine of Election by Robert B. Selph

The “I haven’t posted in ages” List

Since I haven’t posted in ages I must give my viewers a list. This is mandatory and documented in the bloggers handbook. So here it is.

• My wife and I are still living in Kansas City
• My wife got a full time Kindergarten Teacher position that she ROCKS at!
• My wife is upset that I used “at” at the end of the previous sentence (Dang Teachers) at
• I am still working for the same university in KC and I have yet to be bored a single day
• I finally started courses at NSU in the MSIS program
• I started a super top secret project with the bofe that is moving along pretty well (Idea #3)
• I started a blog series on Brute Force Prevention Mistakes and didn’t finish
• I am now using Django extensively and thoroughly enjoy it
• I took Google by storm for the word “shunnels“
• An article I wrote got linked on ha.ckers.org
• Defygo Beta is now protecting over 1000 identities (Idea #1)
• We moved to a smaller and cheaper apartment (Barclay Club)
• I have become obsessed with investing and trying to save money (401k, Roth IRA, e-money market, etc.)
• I found out my Cholesterol was 270 (YES!! thats horrible)
• I started eating healthy and exercising
• I lost 30 pounds
• I stopped eating healthy and exercising
• I gained 10 pounds
• I am still using a 17 inch CRT with dust behind the screen (Random Fact)
• I started bowling, joined a league, and learned to throw a hook
• I started playing in the NABA and realized I can still play while averaging 1 injury per game

I think that should have everybody caught up.

24 and counting

I have now reached the grand old age of 24. The 2nd of October was my birthday and it brought on some expected questions. The company I work for posts birthdays and makes them known to everybody. Do you know what the first question people ask you is when they know its your birthday? Thats right, “How old are you?”. This is the question that I have been dodging slightly since I took an upper management position. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was 5 years younger than the youngest person in my 11 man staff. I actually have people working for me that have kids my age. As always, I have nothing to hide so I just straight up told them. I look a little old for my age so there was a bit of jaw dropping happening around the office. People usually put me in the 28 to 32 range believe it or not. Following the revelation there were the usual references to being in diapers and others calling me young en. The disturbing aspect of this whole situation was that the next week was like being in front of the firing squad. My newly revealed age must have discredited me in some way so the technical questions directed towards me were a little more in depth. I celebrated the questions by making my answers more in depth. The questioning stopped shortly after and we were back to boss and staff. Nice try guys!

The application has been printed and now I just have to fill it out and turn it in. I have finally decided to go back to school and get my Masters. Selecting a university has not been to difficult. I was looking for a school that had a MSIS (Masters in Information Security) that was completely online. This narrowed down my possible choices to two schools. The two schools are Nova Southeastern in Fort Lauderdale Florida and James Madison in Harrisonburg Virginia. Both MSIS programs are certified by the NSA and both are regionally accredited schools. I have chosen Nova for two main reasons. Its cheaper and they will take my work experience in place of a GRE score. At this point I don’t want to study and take the GRE so this seems to be a solid route.

Padro and I have started development on a corporate identity management solution. This is basically a corporate version of our free and highly underrated identity management suite called Defygo. The encryption schema and features for the corporate version are very exciting.

I was at work the other day planning for our upcoming upgrade. We are implementing a new router with 3 merged Ts for our WAN between KC and Arlington VA where all our servers reside. We are going to be implementing prioritization of traffic to effectively use bandwidth and minimize latency. Bandwidth will no longer be distributed by first come first serve but instead will be distributed by a determined hierarchy. Shortly after this upgrade we will be implementing Juniper Peribit WAN acceleration network appliances. This will help reduce latency caused from CIFS traffic, which will dramatically increase the performance of our desktop applications that use files located on our WAN servers. I think I have officially traded in geekdom for corporate supergeekdom and stress.

Lastly, I have been looking for a thinline leather bound New American Standard bible. I am talking about a simple small bible. I have been to two major bookstores and have yet to find one. I guess I am going to have to purchase one online. Does anybody know where I can find one?